The Israeli Parliament voted on Thursday for a bill which prevents Palestinians married to Arab-Israelis from obtaining Israeli citizenship despite accusations that the measure was racist and discriminatory.
A total of 53 deputies voted for the measure and 25 against. There was one abstention in the vote held on the last day before the Parliament goes into a summer recess, a spokesperson for the Knesset said.
Opposition and Arab members of Parliament (MPs) have condemned the measure as racist and discriminatory.
Left wing MP Zeeva Galon said that the ”shameful and unjust” measure would soil the Parliament’s reputation.
”It is a racist law which is contrary to human rights,” she said.
The law disqualifies Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip from gaining Israeli nationality through marriage and blocks the reunification of families split between Israel and the occupied territories.
The minister in charge of relations with Parliament, Gideon Ezra, earlier defended the bill on the grounds that 30 Israelis had been killed by Palestinians who gained citizenship and residency rights through marriage.
”The phenomenon has spun out of control, with more then 100 000 Palestinians from Judea and Samaria [West Bank] and Gaza obtaining Israeli identity cards since the 1993 Oslo [autonomy] accords,” Ezra told public radio.
The domestic security service Shin Beth weighed in on the debate, with its chief Avi Dichter advising MPs that the ban was ”vital for Israel’s security”, the radio reported.
The Israeli Arab rights group Adalah said the new law ”amounts to discrimination on the basis of ethnic or national belonging”.
”The new law takes away constitutionally protected rights explicitly on the basis of ethnic or national belonging,” said lawyer and Adalah general director Hassan Jabareen.
”While numerous Israeli laws discriminate against Arab citizens of the state, as they privilege one group — the Jewish majority — over the other, this law takes away rights. Thus the law is not only discriminatory, it is racist.”
Interior Minister Avraham Poraz, considered a liberal within the governing coalition, has expressed unease about the measure.
”I would have preferred such a text was not needed, but there are security considerations we must take into account,” he said.
The estimated 1,1-million Israeli Arabs in the Jewish state are Palestinians and their descendants who stayed on when Israel was established in 1948, unlike others who fled or were expelled from their homes. – Sapa-AFP